I can't see the problem with saying "Miss >insert name< opened a door into a passing cyclist who was thrown under the wheels of a truck died an agonising death over X minutes. Miss >insert name< was not given the token $60 fine because she clearly suffered enough. Certainly she didn't die. Nor did she suffer any injuries but she was inconvenienced in getting to her very important meeting/ picking up the kids / getting to work."

KonaCommuter wrote:Cyclists do not have to have a drivers licence but are penalised the same if they get caught riding through a red light

Yes but that's because we are all legally drivers and demerit offences are driving offences. Opening a car door by a passenger is not.

Actually, you can't commit a demerit points offence on a bicycle in Queensland by definition. The Driver Licensing regs say so.

Anyway, points shmoints. Why not make injury a circumstance of aggravation? Why not do that for road rules in general? Break a rule and someone gets hurt you go to goal, get DQ'ed for years, whatever. That'd mean taking breaches of the road rules seriously. I can't see governments doing that anytime soon. Pity.

The last two paragraphs of what, exactly, The 2nd Womble? I followed the link, but couldn't see anything which addressed the specific issue which you raised. I'm bemused by the policy - I'm even more bemused that BNV would support it, and I'd love to hear its justification.

I see there was a suggestion for Copenhagen lanes on StKilda Rd on that page. That would be, to put it mildly, f***ing stupid. Copenhagen lanes are incredibly dangerous when you have intersecting streets and lots of driveways, just look at Swanston St. You end up with cars sitting across the bike lanes because the drivers need to get out far enough to see the traffic they want to enter or cross, then they block the bike lane. Once they know that they need to sit across the bike lane to see anything they just go out that far before they start looking for traffic. They just don't work. How do these work in Copenhagen? Maybe they don't have a line of parked cars in between the bike lane and the car lanes.

Given the sheer number of bikes on StKilda Rd I have a solution. The far left lane, plus the current bike lane, should be merged to form one big wide bike lane. It would be safer, wouldn't hold up the cars as they are crawling anyway and would discourage driving along StKilda Rd which is impractical anyway.

DavidS wrote:I see there was a suggestion for Copenhagen lanes on StKilda Rd on that page. That would be, to put it mildly, f***ing stupid. Copenhagen lanes are incredibly dangerous when you have intersecting streets and lots of driveways, just look at Swanston St. You end up with cars sitting across the bike lanes because the drivers need to get out far enough to see the traffic they want to enter or cross, then they block the bike lane. Once they know that they need to sit across the bike lane to see anything they just go out that far before they start looking for traffic. They just don't work. How do these work in Copenhagen? Maybe they don't have a line of parked cars in between the bike lane and the car lanes.

Given the sheer number of bikes on StKilda Rd I have a solution. The far left lane, plus the current bike lane, should be merged to form one big wide bike lane. It would be safer, wouldn't hold up the cars as they are crawling anyway and would discourage driving along StKilda Rd which is impractical anyway.

DS

If St Kilda rd was to actually be "copenhagenized", they would get rid of the parking lane in either direction, make the street 24x7 no parking, raise the kerb lane to half kerb height and have a 1 directional, 2 rider wide cycleway, with raised entrances to the side streets to slow cars down.

There are few or no cycletracks in copenhagen. the word "copenhagen lane", in australia can pretty much be read as we have no idea about cycle infrastructure so we are going to use the name of a city that who does to sell you some unsafe rubbish that protects the apparently god given right to store 2m wide private assets in a busy public thoroughfare.

Offending driver avoids interviews for three months and lawyers up. Officer prepares charges as she should. Senior officers tell her the charges will not be "authorised", no explanation given. No charges at all. Mrs Respectable free to continue driving, perhaps a little wiser, perhaps not.

On reading this the oft-stated "it doesn't matter what the penalties set are if you are not going to apply them" is hard to ignore. One could be excused for wondering why they don't just include in legislation an exemption for those who drive BMWs and live in "respectable" leafy suburbs. That way we would know where we stand.

DavidS wrote:I see there was a suggestion for Copenhagen lanes on StKilda Rd on that page. That would be, to put it mildly, f***ing stupid. Copenhagen lanes are incredibly dangerous when you have intersecting streets and lots of driveways, just look at Swanston St. You end up with cars sitting across the bike lanes because the drivers need to get out far enough to see the traffic they want to enter or cross, then they block the bike lane. Once they know that they need to sit across the bike lane to see anything they just go out that far before they start looking for traffic. They just don't work. How do these work in Copenhagen? Maybe they don't have a line of parked cars in between the bike lane and the car lanes.

Given the sheer number of bikes on StKilda Rd I have a solution. The far left lane, plus the current bike lane, should be merged to form one big wide bike lane. It would be safer, wouldn't hold up the cars as they are crawling anyway and would discourage driving along StKilda Rd which is impractical anyway.

DS

If St Kilda rd was to actually be "copenhagenized", they would get rid of the parking lane in either direction, make the street 24x7 no parking, raise the kerb lane to half kerb height and have a 1 directional, 2 rider wide cycleway, with raised entrances to the side streets to slow cars down.

There are few or no cycletracks in copenhagen. the word "copenhagen lane", in australia can pretty much be read as we have no idea about cycle infrastructure so we are going to use the name of a city that who does to sell you some unsafe rubbish that protects the apparently god given right to store 2m wide private assets in a busy public thoroughfare.

Interesting. If you take the car parking out and raise the road for the length of the separated bike lane it could work. Should have known the version we have on Swanston St was a half baked co*k up.

zero wrote:If St Kilda rd was to actually be "copenhagenized", they would get rid of the parking lane in either direction, make the street 24x7 no parking, raise the kerb lane to half kerb height and have a 1 directional, 2 rider wide cycleway, with raised entrances to the side streets to slow cars down.

There are few or no cycletracks in copenhagen. the word "copenhagen lane", in australia can pretty much be read as we have no idea about cycle infrastructure so we are going to use the name of a city that who does to sell you some unsafe rubbish that protects the apparently god given right to store 2m wide private assets in a busy public thoroughfare.

Interesting.

I'd always assumed that whatever it is we have on Swanston St at least bore some resemblance to what is done in Copenhagen. If it isn't then BNV (using acronyms on this site is trickier since Bicycle Victoria changed its name) should stop using the term. Because Swanston Street is terrible to ride along, a terrible advertisement for riding on the roads of Melbourne generally, and a terrible waste of what money is being spent on cycling infrastructure.

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